Sunday, August 22, 2010

Moronic Advertising, Part 2


As if BP hasn't done enough already, they persist in insulting our intelligence with a self-serving ad campaign which tells us how wonderful BP is for cleaning up their own fucking mess! These spots feature feature good-old-boy BP employees with Cajun accents admitting they'll never capture "all the all" (that's "all the oil"), but nevertheless congratulating themselves for their Herculean efforts with all their planes and boom and boats skimming "oil-water mixture".

Each ad also includes the phrase, "BP has taken full responsibility for the clean-up, and that includes keeping you informed." Puh-leeze! Informing me has nothing to do with the clean-up job. It'd be a hell of a lot more responsible if BP would quit spending multi-millions on this masturbatory PR campaign, shut the fuck up, and just get to work!

Another unrelated and unhappy BP thought: It's great that the well is finally capped. Far, far less oil is visible on the surface of the water. But out of sight should not be out of mind. This thing barfed unholy quantities of toxic crap for three months! Against the EPA's wishes, BP sprayed copious amounts of another toxic substance all over the surface oil. This product, known as Corexit (industry nickname "Hides-it"), doesn't make oil go away. It disperses it, i.e. breaks it down into little balls and makes it sink. It's still there, as is all the oil which never made it to the surface . . . initially. Today, oil still washes ashore in the Prudhoe Bay from the Exxon Valdez spill. BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is the Exxon Valdez to a factor of ten.